


Assorted Fragments from the Lives of the Milvertons

by Quillori



Category: Edward Gorey's PBS Mystery Intro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 20:09:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5469431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark forces gather: rumours of witchcraft; mysterious strangers; kidnap and disappearance. But there's always tea and croquet, so things can't be that bad. Probably.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assorted Fragments from the Lives of the Milvertons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merisunshine36](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merisunshine36/gifts).



**Characters** :

**John Leander Milverton** : known by his middle name, eldest son of Isidore Milverton  
**Walter Milverton** : Middle son of Isidore Milverton, father of **Ambrose** and **Lucinda 'Lulu' Milverton**  
**Robert Milverton** : Youngest son of Isidore Milverton, father of **Everett Milverton**  
**Maude Buckland** : Maternal cousin of Ambrose and Lucinda  
**Ada Allford** : Respectable neighbour of the Milvertons  
**Stanford Meering** : Personal secretary to Leander Milverton  
An **inspector** , and **various policemen**.

__

_The night before_

It was a cold, clear night, the moon poised between full and new, as though it had been cut neatly in half with a knife. The air had that biting winter cold you get when there are no clouds, and the inhabitants of Lower Hangerton were wisely tucked in their various beds, safe from the cold and the dark and the baleful influence of the moon, which is always troubling to right thinking people, but worst of all when it can't make up its mind to be the one thing or the other. At least when it's completely dark, or very bright, you know where you are; or, of course, when it's raining and there's no moon at all to be seen for clouds, which is the usual state of affairs, and really much to be preferred, unless your roof leaks. (Regrettably, the roof of Hangdog Hall, home of the Milverton family, leaked frequently and copiously, which is perhaps why so few of them were truly right thinking people, despite all the advantages of birth and upbringing they could be supposed to enjoy.) 

The village streets were peaceful and deserted; the surrounding fields hardly stirred in the night air; the main road was untroubled by cars; the station was in darkness, its gate locked; the narrow footpath that wound up from Lower Hangerton towards the church and churchyard, and on past that to Hangdog Hall itself, was very nearly deserted: there was only the one woman, dressed in a dark cloak and walking so surely and so silently she seemed almost part of the night itself – past the church, through the graveyard (stopping for a moment at a particular grave, kneeling beside it and plucking something from the ground, standing swiftly and continuing on, looking neither to left nor right) and from the graveyard on up the path and out of sight, leaving stillness and silence behind her. 

Lower Hangerton was a modern town, with modern ways, but it had not quite forgotten the past, and had you roused one of the townsfolk from their safe, warm beds, they would have told you that witches still walked abroad by night, and gathered bitter herbs from beside the graves. 

__

_The morning meeting_

"I have always been very sensitive to atmosphere," Maude said triumphantly. "So of course, I just _knew_." 

It could not be said the atmosphere just then was entirely sympathetic. It was customary for the younger generation to be gathered together after breakfast to entertain each other, but since they had very different ideas of entertainment, and in several cases a fixed dislike of mornings in general, this was rarely an entirely happy plan. Maude, who had replaced an unfashionable childish fondness for Tennyson (and a secret wish to one day have a duel fought over her) with a rather desperate air of fashion, and a not particularly secret, though no more realistic, wish to be the general centre of attention, was certainly happy to be entertaining at any hour of the day, but her potential audience, while devoutly thankful there was no longer a risk of sudden poetry recitation, was disinclined to be entertained either by her conversation or by her latest hobby (currently theosophy, previously tennis, previously parlour room magic tricks, previously amateur theatricals). 

"I expect it's like that time you thought you'd been spotted by a theatrical agent, and he turned out to be a travelling salesman who was following you round because you looked just the sort of person to buy a twelve volume encyclopædia." 

It was, of course, typical of her cousin he should remember that: he never appeared to pay the slightest attention to her (or anyone else much), or to notice one's successes, but if there was some silly, embarrassing slip in one's past, Ambrose could be relied upon to remember. And somehow he never seemed to make embarrassing mistakes himself, or be afflicted with self-doubt in any way. 

It was perhaps unfortunate Ambrose Milverton was not a shade more dashing, or a shade less sarcastic. (Or then again, fortunate, since it was unlikely his guiding ambition was to star in Maude's romantic fantasies.) He had almost the right sort of blond good looks, and almost the right brand of confidence, but there was always a look about him, something almost sly, as though he were sitting quietly in his own mind, watching the people around him put on a mildly amusing show. Which was alright for _some_ people, Maude thought: if you had a vastly rich grandfather, whose oldest son was unmarried and childless, and you were the only son of the next in line, so you had a grand fortune to look forward to, and in the meantime a comfortable junior partnership in a successful legal practice, you could afford not to care what people thought of you, and that the only opinion that counted was yours of them. But Maude was a cousin on the maternal side, and the Bucklands had a good name but no money to speak of, so she could hardly afford to mock people to their faces. 

In this she was being somewhat unfair to her cousin, and rather more than fair to herself: Ambrose was only rarely openly mocking, and she would have been uncertain of herself and too obviously eager for approval even had she been rich. But her relationship with her glamorous cousins had always been fraught (on her side at least – it was doubtful they thought about her at all when she wasn't there): Ambrose refused to fit neatly as the designated hero, while being too respectable and commonsensical to make a villain, and as for his sister … even in the days she had been Lucinda Milverton, tomboy and ringleader, Maude had grudgingly admired her, and resented her too, for being pretty and popular even when she refused to care about anything she was supposed to, or behave appropriately. Then there'd been the scandal (and naturally it was dashing Lucinda who had a dark secret in her past, not plain and droopy Maude), and Lucinda had gone away, and toured the world, and married, and somewhere along the way tomboy Lucy had transmogrified into Lulu Beaumont, aloof society beauty, who was everything Maude longed to be, and therefore both a promise a girl from Hangerton could become famous, and a living reproof that Maude herself had failed to do so. 

"Now that's not fair, coz. Just because you're not sensitive, doesn't mean no one is. Did I tell you last week I was at the races, and as soon as I saw the horses, I just knew Fireworks Factory was going to win? No reason at all, just a feeling, but there you have it. 'Spect Maude's the same way. Have you looked over the racing papers, Maudie dear? I could always do with a tip." 

Everett, youngest of the Milvertons, the decorative and entirely useless child of the youngest son, smiled benignly at her, complacently pleased to be able to stand up for someone (and rather chuffed with himself for having risen early enough to finish dressing in time for the morning festivities, and for being reasonably coherent at so unfashionable and undesirable hour as eleven in the morning). 

Ambrose congratulated him warmly on his chivalry "- although I expect it would go over better if she didn't hate being called Maudie, and you didn't lose twice as often as you win." 

The last member of the little morning party (Lulu having stayed firmly in bed), looked up from her game of patience and said peaceably that it must be very frightening to feel you were being followed, and there was no reason to doubt Maude's word: surely she had come down on the train Lulu had planned to take, and there were so often pressmen following her, there might easily have been some on the train, no mystery about it at all. And there never was any mystery about anything around Ada Allford, the respectable daughter of a respectable local doctor: as plain and inherently unfashionable as Maude, she wielded good sense like a weapon, turning the world around her into a place where fashion and romance and excitement all shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed, and only practicality and competence were important. 

__

_The afternoon tea_

Observe Mr Stanford Meering. He is the very model of a discreet personal secretary. He gives the impression of solid dependability. He is devoted to his employer. He will take his secrets, and more to the point his employer's, to the grave, while steadfastly maintaining there are no secrets. He follows an orderly pattern, dealing with the same jobs at the same time on the same days, so that everything runs like well-maintained clockwork. He is dressed well, but not too well. He is deferential to his superiors, but never oleaginous. He is firm with those below him, but never rude. His references are impeccable. Earlier today he was burying a something in the coal cellar, but he made sure to clean every trace of coal dust from his clothes and his person before he came down to tea. 

__

_The fateful evening_

There was a cocktail party that evening. Naturally, everyone who was anyone in Hangerton attended. The major was there, and his brother. So too was the new doctor, a rather weedy man with an unfortunate bald spot, who wished his patients wouldn't make it so obvious they preferred to consult his predecessor's daughter. The fascinating Mrs Scropely, a celebrated novelist, was deep in conversation with Leander. (Meering was of course there also, Leander's faithful shadow. Unlike Leander, he knew a great deal about The Modern Novel, but on the other hand he lacked presence, charisma and a fur lined evening coat, so he was of little interest to Mrs Scropely.) 

Lulu looked particularly stunning, so stunning you hardly noticed the absence of Everett (who claimed to have caught a cold) and Ambrose (who didn't bother to claim anything, but was nonetheless not there. Perhaps he was in Lower Hangerton, talking to a young factory worker about symbolist poetry, although that doesn't seem a very probable story, so perhaps he was doing something else.) 

There was a masked man at the party, which went determinedly unremarked by everyone – he was very dashing and mysterious, and therefore exactly the sort of thing you would expect from Lulu. Doubtless he was a foreign spy, or an international criminal, or the exiled prince of some fantastically wealthy foreign kingdom. It would merely be encouraging her to ask. Besides, it would seem hopelessly provincial. No doubt in the circles she moved in, the occasional masked stranger was merely the latest fashionable affectation. 

It was a very successful party, and went on quite late. Indeed it might not have ended till after midnight, which would have been quite dissipated by local standards, had the evening not been brought to and abrupt and unfortunate end by the arrival of the police (summoned by an anonymous phone call), and the subsequent discovery of Robert Milverton's body in the library. He had, of course, been murdered. 

__

_Also that evening_

From Hangdog Hall, the sunset lit the sky like a funeral pyre – vermillion and gold and glowing orange befitting the death of gods. But lower down the valley smoke and fog combined to dim and brown the light, giving it a sickly, dying cast, the colour of rotting leaves and other decaying things. Around the Hall, the bare trees stood brave and stark, bold dark lines against the brilliant sky; around Lower Hangerton, the trees seemed stunted and dead, bent beneath the weight of the polluted sky. But the light lasted longer down in the valley: on the bluff above, the flames of sunset faded and the sky grew dark; down below, the lights of the village and the outlying factories reflected back from the smoky fog, as though the ghost of the sunset still fitfully haunted the sky. 

Above, all was dark. Below, Hangerton pond, which lay next to the church, mirrored the ghastly yellow fog, the single tree on its bank made bizarrely twisted in the rippling water. After a while, the water stilled, the reflected tree grew straight again, and there was no trace at all of the body that had disappeared into the pond's muddy depths. 

__

_The following afternoon_

It was Leander Milverton's habit to play croquet at three in the afternoon. It was the habit of the weather to be dark and drizzling at that time, but Leander was not inclined to notice such trivial details: as his namesake had been undissuaded from his course by the broad Hellespont, so was our modern Leander by the vagaries of the climate. Had not a stout will and an unshakeable sense of purpose made his father a captain of industry and man of wealth? Would Leander be less than Isidore had been? 

Whether he could persuade anyone to play with him was a more problematic question. Walter and Robert, lesser lights who moonlike reflected the glory of their elder brother, were in any case accustomed to the weather, and accustomed to following his lead, but they were both atrocious players. Of the younger set, even when they were not in town, Ambrose could be relied upon to have some pressing business matter to attend to, and Everett felt the damp inimical to the perfection of his wardrobe. Only Ada was really satisfactory – as competent at croquet as any other task, and quite untroubled by even the worst storm. Of course, in the circumstances, Robert could hardly be expected to play, but Walter had found himself by force of habit on the lawn, and very likely it did not occur to Leander or to Ada that death should be permitted to disrupt their plans. 

The crack of the mallets on the balls, the quiet sound of the rain, the steady progression from hoop to hoop, seemed to Walter to take on a hellish dimension, as though there was nothing left in the world beyond the drumming of rain on his umbrella and the clack of the balls, and every iron hoop like another open grave, swallowing the balls one by one. He did not voice these thoughts, for he knew his family would have thought him mad; indeed, he thought himself mad. Life went on in its customary grooves, and there was no place for fancy – leave that to his children, to Lucy who hid her common-place sins behind a disguise of glamorous mystery, and Ambrose who hid his more extravagant vices behind a disguise of common-place conventionality. For Walter, there was only letters to be answered before lunch, and lunch, and croquet at three, day after day until the end of time, whether Robert was there to join him or not. And no sane man found croquet reminiscent of death. 

Still, it was really rather a relief to him when his ball, which he had been about to retrieve when Ada laid a hand on his arm and stopped him, was crushed beneath a large chunk of masonry, previously the front corner of the house. How had it happened? Why had it happened? Surely houses did not come to pieces like that? (And brothers did not die like that. And everyone else did not continue on, undisturbed and uninterested, as though nothing had changed.) But apparently that was the way things were now, and even the safety of routine was an illusion. Behind him, Leander was swearing fluently at the interrupted game, and the damage to the lawn, and the probable cost of repairing the roof now. He really did not mean to start laughing. There was nothing to laugh about. But perhaps it was the right thing to do after all, for Ada took him by the arm and led him gently away, promising tea and rest, and the world always looked right again after Ada's tea. 

__

_A little later the same afternoon_

Bill edged out along the roof top, careful-like, with a wary eye to the cracks and crumbling places. Still, this was what they paid him for. If you couldn't rely on the police, well, there was no one else, was there? 

"Steady on there," he said, partly to the girl, and partly to himself. The girl was a little slip of thing, wearing some ridiculous modern get up – she must be cold as anything, up there for who knew how long. He almost slipped, trying to reach her faster, and when he caught the balustrade to steady himself, part of it came away under his hand, disintegrating to powder. No wonder half of it had come down, if someone had dragged the girl across it. The whole place ought to to be condemned. 

He got to her at last, and pulled at the rain soaked knots, so swollen with water they refused to come undone. Why hadn't he brought a knife? How long had she been there anyway? They'd better see about calling a doctor. They should … hang on there, he thought, something's not right. The rain had eased off a little, and the clouds parted to give a fitful light, in which he saw the girl's face clearly. It was the same girl. Couldn't be any doubt about it. Well, and what was she doing here? And tied up again, didn't that just take the biscuit. Whatever were things coming to … modern girls and their modern ways … it would be gin and fast dancing next. Still, first things first. Get her down, and then tell the inspector. He'd know what to make of it, he would. 

__

_Also that afternoon, now quite late_

There was something very suspicious about it, obviously, but suspicious of what? There was Isidore Milverton, quite clearly up to no good, and probably a Napoleon of crime. Pretending to need a wheelchair, claiming to be a recluse who would speak to no one but his family … oh no, he didn't fool anyone. Nothing about that story added up, not when you knew where to look. Times he was alleged to be in a hotel room alone all day, with nothing to eat and no sound of movement heard. Visits to the theatre when he clearly cared nothing for the play, couldn't even be bothered to applaud, or so much as turn his head to follow the action. (Who was he meeting there? What information was being passed on and to whom?) A truly laughable alibi for the Grovington case – someone claimed to have seen him on an upper balcony at the time. Really, a child wouldn't fall for that – what sort of elderly man would sit out on a balcony after it had started to rain? No, he was on to old Isidore alright, and one day he'd have the evidence. Then let the man refuse to speak to him, and see where it got him. 

And this must be a clue. This girl, turning up twice like this, once when they were following Isidore on one of his mysterious theatre visits, and now at Isidore's own home. But who had attacked her repeatedly, and why wouldn't she talk? Who was she afraid of, and how could she be made to tell what she knew? 

And blast it, the most mysterious part of all, the really infuriating thing. What had happened to Isidore? He'd given them the slip in town, going by private car with his granddaughter rather than the train as planned, but he'd definitely arrived at Hangdog Hall. He been seen, no doubt about it, being wheeled in from the car. Then the fortuitous death of his youngest son, and the police finally had an opportunity to search the place, to question everyone, and he wasn't there anymore. He just wasn't there. The thing was impossible. How could he have vanished into thin air? And none of his family seemed concerned. In fact, they seemed relieved. But none of them would say how he could have escaped unseen, or where he might have gone. 

The inspector glared at his notebook, which seemed sadly full of unanswered questions. Who had called them in? None of the household would admit to it. And who was the cloaked figure several of the servants had seen prowling the grounds? And this girl, Maude Buckland, what to make of her behaviour? No sooner had she been rescued, than she made an excuse to slip up to her room alone, and the doctor, who had gone up to her as soon as he arrived, swore he'd seen her hastily burning something in the fire. But by the time he'd thought to tell the police, and her bedroom had been searched, there was nothing to find but ash. 

__

_Elsewhere, the same afternoon_

"I do think you could be little more discreet," Ada said reprovingly. "I didn't object to you marrying the chauffeur – you may have been a little young at the time, but I expect Tom's a fine man in his way. And I'm sure you had your reasons for marrying Mr Beaufort, who is a very suitable husband, and divorces are such a nuisance to come by, no one could blame you for finding bigamy more convenient. But bringing Tom to the party was rather a risk, surely? He has after all worked here for years. Someone might easily have recognised him and started raking up the past and asking inconvenient questions." 

Lulu sighed. "But he did so want to come, and I've found if you look mysterious enough, people have so much fun making up stories they don't want the truth. Look at the inspector: absolutely convinced Isidore is some sort of desperate criminal, when you'd think the truth would be obvious." 

"Lucky for you it isn't." 

"Well yes, that would be a disaster. I can't think why he didn't get on and gift everything away years ago. Waiting till his health was already going was quite unspeakably selfish of him. If I hadn't seen the police arriving when I went to powder my nose, and had the presence of mind to get rid of the dummy, the game would have been up. We could hardly have refused to let them question him when his own son had been murdered." 

Lulu sighed again, more deeply this time. The vagaries of her husbands she could look upon with a measure of indulgence, but her thoughtless grandfather, dying like that and leaving them to face crippling death duties, was quite another matter. Really, they'd had no choice but to conceal his death... 

__

_Lower Hangerton train station, still the same afternoon_

Mr Cecil Biggs, insurance investigator, paced up and down the station platform. Things had not gone well, which was really not his fault. How was he supposed to predict there would be a body in the library? And having found that there was, against all expectation and precedent, a dead body there, surely he had had no choice but to call the police? It was his civic duty, plain and simple. 

But it might have been a little difficult to explain what he'd been doing there himself. It was, after all, private property. And as yet no crime had been committed (other than murder, of course, which was nothing to do with him). But the whole set up was fishy, quite decidedly fishy. You don't own a great mouldering pile of a place like that, obviously in need of all sorts of repairs, and then develop a sudden desire to insure it for large amounts against fire without people wondering if you plan to go in for a little quick arson; certainly if a cynical agent thinks precisely that and finds said mouldering pile uninsurable, and you immediately develop a new desire, this time to insure a variety of heirlooms and alleged art for a similar sum … well, what's a sensible man to think? Ten to one they'd have been reporting a burglary any day, and then it would be his job to prove they were lying. Much easier to snoop around first, and see if he could catch them in the act, see where the stuff was hidden. That was the way to build a reputation: Mr Biggs, miracle man – the guy who could walk straight onto the scene and say at once what had really happened, and where the goods were stashed. 

Mr Biggs, trespasser and unfortunate witness in a murder trial just didn't have the same ring. No, he'd done his duty informing the police, and now it was time to fade quietly from the scene. 

__

_Various other people, subsequent days_

Maude Buckland paced impatiently up and down the hall. Would the mail never arrive? She'd sent away for it at once, as soon as she'd burned that awful, useless book. Really, what had she been thinking? It had been a terrible idea from the start. This would be much better: not Maude the hopeless actress (and the travelling salesman debacle still rankled); not Maude the lady magician (the episode with the rabbit and the dead dove was also better forgotten); not dashing Maude the tennis star (tennis had turned out to be a great deal harder than she'd thought); not Maude Buckland the noted theosophist (people had kept asking her what theosophy actually meant, and she didn't have Lulu's ability to look mysterious); not Maude Buckland the female Houdini (the policeman had been very nice, but the thought of telling him the truth was worse even than the travelling salesman); but Miss Maude Buckland, the Famous Bagpipe Player. She would be the cynosure of every drawing room! All she needed was a copy of _The Easy Beginner's Guide to Piping_ (which was definitely what she should have ordered in the first place, rather than _The Easy Beginner's Guide to Escapology_ , now safely consigned to the flames), and her new and glittering career would be launched. 

~

Everett Milverton strolled down the street towards his favourite luncheon spot. He worked, for some value of the word 'work', in the civil service. Mostly he gossiped, and wandered round to other people's offices for a little chat, and avoided doing his own job as much as possible, but since it wasn't a very important job, and he wasn't very good at it, no one minded much. 

He sat down in his usual seat, and ordered his usual lunch. He took out, as usual, his copy of _Sporting Life_ , and made careful annotations, in the manner of the confirmed gambler. Later he would, as usual, abandon the paper on the same park bench as he always did, where it would be picked up as it always was, and the careful annotations decoded. For, hard though it was to believe, Everett Milverton was indeed a foreign spy, or at least a native spy for foreign powers. (Also a keen but unlucky gambler, which is what had led to him selling information in the first place.) Because he was so obviously useless, no one noticed, or would have credited it had he told them. Indeed, no one ever did notice, and he eventually retired at sixty-five to blameless obscurity, without the faintest shadow of suspicion having ever fallen on him. 

~

Ambrose Milverton had finished work for the day, and was now engaged in a passionate discussion of Schopenhauer's philosophy with a young man in the building trade. Ambrose was remarkably dedicated to the spread of culture amongst all levels of society. 

~

The moon had, temporarily, made up its mind to non-existence. Tomorrow, the sky would again be lit by the first sliver of the waxing moon, but tonight all was darkness: a proper night, an appropriate night, the correct and traditional night. Ada sacrificed the bat quickly and efficiently (it would be unkind and inefficient to let it suffer), and murmured a brief invocation to the dark powers. 

There was a nasty epidemic of whooping cough going round, which would quite miss Lower Hangerton, a circumstance the new doctor would ascribe to his sound advice on hygiene and modern nutritional standards, and everyone else would ascribe more accurately to Ada. 

~

Walter had, most unfortunately, to be taken away to live in a nice hospital. Leander visited him punctiliously every week. Luckily, the nice hospital had a garden for the inmates, with a fine croquet court, so they were able to have a weekly game. Sadly, Walter's health never really improved, and any gains he seemed to make never lasted more than five or six days at the outside. But it was a very nice hospital. 


End file.
